The White House needs BACK OFF and let the Department of Justice and the federal courts do their job. And a bunch of non-lawyers with ZERO expertise in this area, should NOT be part of the decision making process, much less driving that process. Hasn’t Rahm done enough damage to the President with his mishandling of the healthcare bill? Why do you want him to screw up something he knows even less about?

Over the last nine years, the FBI changed its rationale several times for what it was doing with exigent letters. As with earlier excuses, the FBI was providing excuses they didn’t use contemporaneously, including claiming that telecoms turned over data voluntarily even though they had been given a letter promising a subpoena, meaning documentation exists to show it was mandatory. In both this IG Report and an earlier one, USDOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine takes them to task for claiming a justification retroactively, particularly where they claimed phone companies worked voluntarily.

There is absolutely no legal or procedural way that the road to shutting Guantanamo down runs inexorably through Graham’s office. That’s a political choice, and one White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is making foolishly.

Yesterday, day one, headlines reported everything from “Surprise tactic in Afghanistan offensive befuddles Taliban” and Key posts seized in Taliban stronghold to
Afghanistan war: Marjah battle as tough as Fallujah, say US troops along with the inevitable The mistaken killing of 12 Afghan civilians prompts U.S. apology.

The shorter version of this is “Every Senator wasn’t willing to do exactly what I wanted, so I’m leaving because this is too hard.” But the subtext is that partisan gridlock frustrates Congress, particularly the Senate, from getting things done. If there only were some quirk in the Senate rules that added additional veto points, in many cases causing the gridlock of which Bayh speaks. I wonder what he had to say about those Senate rules…

“If Washington DC could be more like Indiana,” siad Bayh, “then Washington would be a better place.” Also, the fried Pike would be better.

Barring some miracle of Tamyra D’Ippolito qualifying for the primary ballot in the Indiana Senate race, it’s likely that Indiana Democrats will be able, be virtue of having no primary candidates on the ballot, to select their own candidate for November, avoiding the primary entirely. So who will that candidate be?

I just spoke with Tamyra D’Ippolito, the candidate who was already running in the US Senate primary as a Democrat in Indiana before Evan Bayh ended his re-election bid today. D’Ippolito’s potential presence on the primary ballot complicates the ability for Indiana Democrats to handpick a nominee. If nobody qualifies for the primary, Indiana Dems can choose the candidate. But if D’Ippolito qualifies, then she would be the only candidate on that primary ballot, and Brad Ellsworth or Baron Hill or whoever would have to run a write-in campaign to defeat her in that primary in May.

Here’s Steve Benen on Bayh’s weak ass excuse for quitting.

Why would Evan Bayh file to run for the Senate, and then pull out 24 hours before the deadline for signatures to be filed?